StudentTense - Part Two

'Do or Die for the Hydrogen Car' The second in our 'StudentTense' series of features - four students, four stories - their take on an aspect of the future. This segment by Lachlan Wills examines the hydrogen car - long overshadowed by it's electric cousin.

Transcript

Antony Funnell: Hello, and welcome to the program - Antony Funnell here.

Today, the final three stories in our Student Tense project.

As I explained last week, we invited journalism students at La Trobe University in Melbourne to give us their take on the future.

If you missed the first in the series, Chris McNamara's look at our changing taste for beer - fear not; remember you can still catch it by going to our website.

OK. Now to today's offerings.

And first up, a piece by Lachlan Wills, entitled 'Do or Die for the Hydrogen Car'.

George W. Bush: Tonight I'm proposing $1.2-billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean hydrogen-powered automobiles.

Lachlan Wills: George W. Bush in 2003, delivering his State of the Union address. In the early years of the new millennium, his Administration nurtured the pursuit of the hydrogen dream.

George W. Bush: With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.

Lachlan Wills: But it wasn't long before the momentum behind the hydrogen car started to dry up and the critics began talking about the focus on hydrogen power as more of a distraction rather than a solution to the world's energy and pollution problems. Among them, Joseph J. Romm, a former US Department of Energy official published the book The Hype about Hydrogen - Fact and fiction in the race to save the climate.

Joseph J. Romm: A lot of things have to go right all at once for hydrogen cars to make sense, and for those of us who care about global warming, hydrogen is a very costly and inefficient way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And if your entire focus is global warming, then you're not going to be building hydrogen cars until after 2035.

Lachlan Wills: For hydrogen power proponents, things only got worse with the election of George W. Bush's successor. In 2009, Barak Obama's Department of Energy Secretary, Stephen Chu, tried to slash millions away from hydrogen funding. The funding cuts were over-ruled by Congress, but Professor John Andrews, head of RMIT University's Hydrogen Research Group, says Secretary Chu's scathing criticism of hydrogen has still been a bitter pill to swallow.

Stephen Chu: I think this is certainly a setback. But I'm still optimistic that we may well start to be on the turn-up again in terms of interest in hydrogen, and I believe the key drivers are going to be climate change, because we need hydrogen from renewables as a key part of our strategy to reduce emissions in transport, and also the issue of peak oil.

Lachlan Wills: One of the big problems hydrogen advocates have faced isn't technical or political, it's related to perception.

The crash of the Hindenburg in 1937 helped establish in the public mind that the gas is dangerous and unstable. But Professor Andrews says that fear is unfounded.

John Andrews: We have been working with high-pressure gas for a very, very long time, and the proper procedures, it is no more risky than an LPG vehicle or a compressed natural gas vehicle, or petrol vehicle. I think the most disappointing thing in Australia is the lack of Federal government and State government funds for research, development, demonstration of hydrogen technology. By 2030 we could be seeing a transport sector and an electricity generation sector in which there's very substantial reliance on hydrogen.

Lachlan Wills: Another potential difficulty facing hydrogen technology, is cost. There are predictions a hydrogen car will have a $US400,000 price tag. But at least one major manufacturer says they anticipate selling hydrogen vehicles for a lot less.

Vic Johnston: Toyota's already said by 2015 they'll have it in the States and Japan. That will happen. Now the cars have been running around, they've been testing them on all those things, they'll make it happen.

Lachlan Wills: Toyota's man on the ground in Australia, heading up hybrid technology car sales is Vic Johnston. And he says the company will have a model available for $US50,000 within five years.

Vic Johnston: Putting it into perspective, a $50,000 car is not a cheap car; would you put it mass market? No. But it's not an expensive car by any means. The car will be the ultimate eco-machine. There are no emissions. The car is extremely quiet and smooth to drive and it will be an electric motor driving the wheels so it'll be very powerful. The packaging of the car would be superior to anything they've had because the fuel cell can be tucked away in an unused corner of the vehicle, the electric motor, motors aren't very large to get the same size, so the space in the car would be unbelievable. The exterior of the car wouldn't need to be large, except they've still got lounge-room type space, and I think they could feel pretty smug, because at least for the first couple of years, not many of us are going to have one. You'll be first kid on your block to have a one of these things. And that's important to a lot of people, the very first kid on the block with the new model.

Lachlan Wills: However, Vic Johnston concedes the issue of fuelling infrastructure must be clear before the hydrogen car can find a mass market.

Vic Johnston: Where am I going to fill it up? I'd want to know if I get out of Sydney and pull up whenever I wanted to for that coffee and top the tank up. And that's exactly what came out in a lot of the research we did; people aren't prepared to go shopping for it. As long as the fuel is available where they need it and want it, they would consider an alternative fuel vehicle.

Lachlan Wills: But there have been some breakthroughs in that area. So-called 'hydrogen highways' - stretches of road with chains of hydrogen-equipped refuelling stations have either been built or are on the planning board in a number of countries, including Italy, the US and Canada.

A significant breakthrough came recently in Germany, when key players from the auto-maker industry and the energy industry signed a partnership to build 1,000 fuelling stations by 2015. Australia has only made tentative steps, some hydrogen-powered buses operated in a three-year trial in Perth, and Australian Association for Hydrogen Energy has just been formed, and Sydney will host the World Hydrogen Technology Conference in the red-letter year, 2015.

A key to its potential success is whether it can capture a market of car enthusiasts who are across the latest technology and have the purchasing power to make it happen.

Business owner Gary Pearce would be the ideal mark.

Gary Pearce is also a racing car driver and owns his own racing team. I joined Gary at his team workshop.

Gary Pearce: I'll go back to what I said: at other times, that it's not governments will develop this technology, it's private companies that will develop it. So whilst the American people become more and more dependent on oil reserves from outside their own country, it's not the government that's going to find or create the replacements, it's going to be the private companies that will do it.

Lachlan Wills: While the hydrogen price-tag may seemingly rule many people out of the market, Gary Pearce says when it comes to the crunch, people will spend whatever it takes.

Gary Pearce: It's only when we're faced with the alternatives that the higher prices become more attractive. So for instance, for some reason if we had to start using more public transport, the $40,000 or $50,000 car that yesterday was too expensive, starts to become viable. People find a way.

Lachlan Wills: Gary Pearce says hydrogen cars wouldn't work on the racetrack. But what would it take for him to buy a hydrogen car for business or personal use?

Gary Pearce: The car's got to meet the criteria that I have at the particular time. That might be carrying capacity, it might be performance, it might be of a style or interior comfort that I require, it's got to suit my needs. And the fuel has to be available wherever I go. I couldn't be bothered driving 30 kilometres just to fill the tank up, I mean that defeats the purpose of having that sort of car.

Antony Funnell: Businessman, Gary Pearce, and that report was from Lachlan Wills.